Outline

Overview

Performance has long been associated with risk: in the popular imagination, among performers, writers and theorists. From breathless narratives of courageous actors taking on risky roles, to the extremes of performance art, contemporary performance and political action, you will explore and understand performance pushed to the limits.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Theatre and Performance Studies
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	None
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	None
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Ian Maxwell, ian.maxwell@sydney.edu.au

Assessment

The census date for this unit availability is 1 September 2025

Details
Criteria

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length	Use of AI
Written work	Final Essay A case study essay	40%	Formal exam period Due date: 21 Nov 2025 at 23:59	2000 words	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
Creative work	Group performance project A group project involving an experimental performance.	40%	Multiple weeks	1500 words equivalent per student	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
Out-of-class quiz	Early Feedback Task #earlyfeedbacktask	0%	Week 03 Due date: 22 Aug 2025 at 23:59	15 minutes	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
Written work	Manifesto! You will research and create a short performance of an excerpt from a manifesto. You will then write a short essay contextualising the manifesto you worked on and explaining your performance choices.	20%	Week 05 Due date: 05 Sep 2025 at 23:59	1000 words	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
= group assignment ? = early feedback task ?

Early feedback task

This unit includes an early feedback task, designed to give you feedback prior to the census date for this unit. Details are provided in the Canvas site and your result will be recorded in your Marks page. It is important that you actively engage with this task so that the University can support you to be successful in this unit.

Assessment summary

Assessment task 1 Short Essay 1000 words

Assessment task 2 Group Assignment 1500 words equivalent per student

Assessment task 3 Final Essay 2000 words per student

Assessment criteria

The University awards common result grades, set out in the Coursework Policy 2014 (Schedule 1).

As a general guide, a High distinction indicates work of an exceptional standard, a Distinction a very high standard, a credit a good standard, and a pass an acceptable standard.

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100
Distinction	75 - 84
Credit	65 - 74
Pass	50 - 64
Fail	0 - 49	When you don’t meet the learning outcomes of the unit to a satisfactory standard.

For more information see guide to grades.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

You can use generative AI tools for open assessments. Restrictions on AI use apply to secure, supervised assessments used to confirm if students have met specific learning outcomes.

Refer to the assessment table above to see if AI is allowed, for assessments in this unit and check Canvas for full instructions on assessment tasks and AI use.

If you use AI, you must always acknowledge it. Misusing AI may lead to a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy.

Visit the Current Students website for more information on AI in assessments, including details on how to acknowledge its use.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

This unit has an exception to the standard University policy or supplementary information has been provided by the unit coordinator. This information is displayed below:

Please contact the Unit of Study Coordinator, Ian Maxwell (Ian.Maxwell@sydney.edu.au) as soon as you are able should you not be able to submit your work by the required deadline.

Academic integrity

The University expects students to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

Our website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. This includes advice on how to avoid common breaches of academic integrity. Ensure that you have completed the Academic Honesty Education Module (AHEM) which is mandatory for all commencing coursework students

Penalties for serious breaches can significantly impact your studies and your career after graduation. It is important that you speak with your unit coordinator if you need help with completing assessments.

Visit the Current Students website for more information on AI in assessments, including details on how to acknowledge its use.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Support for students

The Support for Students Policy reflects the University’s commitment to supporting students in their academic journey and making the University safe for students. It is important that you read and understand this policy so that you are familiar with the range of support services available to you and understand how to engage with them.

The University uses email as its primary source of communication with students who need support under the Support for Students Policy. Make sure you check your University email regularly and respond to any communications received from the University.

Learning resources and detailed information about weekly assessment and learning activities can be accessed via Canvas. It is essential that you visit your unit of study Canvas site to ensure you are up to date with all of your tasks.

If you are having difficulties completing your studies, or are feeling unsure about your progress, we are here to help. You can access the support services offered by the University at any time:

Support and Services (including health and wellbeing services, financial support and learning support)
Course planning and administration
Meet with an Academic Adviser

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	Introduction to unit and teachers. An overture: a brief package of some dangerous performances. Discussion of key terms: danger, risk, transgression, excess, taboo.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 01	Welcome and Introductions. Discussion of syllabus, and selection on the key terms discussed in lecture. Bring your examples. A brief overview of the historical avant-garde. The class will also include a (non-dangerous) performance exercise.	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 02	Danger. This week we will consider the deep history of performance, tracing anxieties about actors and their power from Plato onwards. We will also introduce a key theory: Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 02	This week in the two hour workshop we will discuss the first Assessment Task, which will require you to research a manifesto. We will think about manifestos as performance texts, in addition to being literary texts. We will suggest that manifestos are intended to be performed. Focussing on the Futurist Manifesto, you will participate in a performance exercise	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 03	Transgressive thinking and the argument against Reason. The avant-garde not only responded to a progressive social and political agenda. Key thinkers in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century challenged the idea of progress, and of Reason itself. With this context we will look at the genre of manifesto and the avant garde.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 03	This week you will work, in pairs, on your performance of an excerpt from a manifesto.	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 04	Crowds and Power: A very dangerous performance. Hitler's Nuremberg Rallies and Victor Turner's theory of ritual	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 04	Continue work on Assessment task 1	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 05	Dada. In the first of a series of classes tracing the history of twentieth century avant garde performance we introduce Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara and the movement that meant nothing	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 05	Alfred Jarry's 1896 Ubu Roi was an offensive, ridiculous, controversial, play which set the scene for Dada, Surrealism, Artaud, and which is very much a work for our own times. We will read the play in class, thinking about the excess of the carnivalesque as theorised by Bakhtin.	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 06	Add a bit of Freud to Dada and you get: Surrealism. Centred on Paris in the years following the First World War, Surrealism produced a series of manifestos, urging an intense engagement with the realm of the subconsccous which, untainted by civilisation, offered access to deep Truths.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 06	Dada and Surrealism. Today we will look at and discuss a couple of short films made by artists associated with Dada and Surrealism We will also get started on the major performance assessment project	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 07	Rejected by the Surrealists, Antonin Artaud called for what he called 'The Theatre of Cruelty': a theatre which moved beyond representation to something pure and irresistible.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 07	Artaud: Manifestos of Cruelty; Performances of Cruelty In the first half of the class we will consider Artaud’s writing, including his Manifestos of Cruelty and discuss examples of performance which have taken up the challenges to conventional theatre that he proposed. Artaud wrote one ‘play’: 'Jet de Sang' (‘Spurt of Blood’) which we will read together. We will also listen to at least part of his radio play 'Pour en Finir avec le Judgment de Dieu' (‘To be Done with the Judgement of God').	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 08	After the War: Lettristes and Situationists. Released from the asylum in which he had spent the war years Artaud died in 1948. In the space that he and the Surrealists had carved out, new generations of transgressive artists emerged. The Lettristes experimented with film and invented the media prank. From their work emerged the radical Situationist movement, led by Guy Debord, who proposed techniques for subverting what he called 'the Society of the Spectacle'.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 08	The Situationists: the derive. You will take part in a short derive, and continue to work on your major assignment.	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 10	Fluxus. Ah, Fluxus. The joy of flow. Escaping from the tyranny of institutions, galleries, virtuosity and expectations of high art, the Fluxus movement celebrated simple tasks, encouraging us to experience the world, and each other, with fresh, playful eyes (and bodies).	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 10	Work on performances	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 11	Performance Art/Happenings. In parallel to Fluxus and the Situationists, others were experimenting with transgressive forms of performance involving creating events, and working with bodies in novel, excessive, and confronting manners.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 11	Group Presentations	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 12	Theorising contemporary Performance and Body Art. We will look at various practices and performances which — seek to blur the boundaries between different kinds of arts practices; — focus on 'the body' as a thematic concern; — work with ideas of danger and ambiguity; and — are often quite confronting	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 12	Group Presentations (cont)	Tutorial (2 hr)
Week 13	In the final lecture we will wrap up the content and the key arguments of the unit of study, drawing together the theory, the historical material, your own experiments, and thinking about the final essay question, in which you have the opportunity to think through the issues that the unit has raised.	Lecture (1 hr)
Week 13	Your last chance to work through the ideas of the unit with your tutors, with a view to planning and drafting your essay.	Tutorial (2 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance: According to Faculty Board Resolutions, students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences are expected to attend 90% of their classes. If you attend less than 50% of classes, regardless of the reasons, you may be referred to the Examiner’s Board. The Examiner’s Board will decide whether you should pass or fail the unit of study if your attendance falls below this threshold.
Lecture recording: Most lectures (in recording-equipped venues) will be recorded and may be made available to students on the LMS. However, you should not rely on lecture recording to substitute your classroom learning experience.
Preparation: Students should commit to spend approximately three hours’ preparation time (reading, studying, homework, essays, etc.) for every hour of scheduled instruction.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Reading Materials for each week are provided in Canvas via the University Library’s system for accessing readings electronically. This Canvas Reading List clearly sets out which items to read in which weeks. It includes “required” readings but also some additional recommended readings.

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

LO1. demonstrate an understanding of performance as a potentially transgressive practice
LO2. demonstrate your understanding of key concepts from relevant performance theories
LO3. apply theoretical concepts, as well as the insights from experiential learning activities, in the analysis of transgressive performances
LO4. demonstrate familiarity with a range of performance practices from the "historical avant-garde movements" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, through the "neo avant garde" of the late 20th century, and up to the present day.

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

We have reworked the first assessment task to integrate a practical aspect (and to make it less vulnerable to mis-use of AI) as requested by many students.

Additional information

Note students must complete ALL assessment tasks in order to complete the unit

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Early feedback task

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

PRFM1602: Dangerous Performances

Semester 2, 2025 [Normal day] - Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Early feedback task

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Additional information

Additional information

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links